اللغات

Afghanistan

Taliban forces have stoned a couple to death for adultery in a public execution. With Nato and UN officials in Kabul poring over the latest Taliban proposal to establish a joint commission to investigate civilian casualties, officials in the north of the country were detailing a killing that Amnesty International described as the first confirmed stoning in the country since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Militants ordered the stoning after a married man and a single woman in Dasht-e-Archi district, Kunduz province, were accused of eloping.

Taliban insurgents flogged and publicly executed a pregnant Afghan widow for alleged adultery Saturday, according to reports. The woman, Sanum Gul (also reported as Bibi Sanubar by DAWN), was killed in Badghis province in western Afghanistan Saturday morning, the provincial governor's spokesman said. After being held in captivity for three days and flogged 200 times, Gul -- whose age was given as both 35 and 47 in various reports -- was shot in the head three times, said Hashim Habibi, the district governor of Qades, also located in the province. Though Habibi said Taliban commander Mohammaad Yousuf carried out the execution, a Taliban spokesman has since denied any involvement.

"We have not done anything like that in Badghis or any other province," the spokesman said, calling the report "propaganda" by foreigners and the Western-backed Afghan government. Officials say Gul had been widowed for four years. She was accused of adultery for her relationship with an unnamed man, despite claims that the man had planned to marry her. Various groups have since condemned the killing.

Reprising a legendary 1985 National Geographic cover, this week's Time magazine cover girl is another beautiful young Afghan woman. But this time there is a gaping hole where her nose used to be before it was cut off under Taliban direction. A stark caption reads: "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan". A careful editorial insists that the image is not shown "either in support of the US war effort or in opposition to it". The stated intention is to counterbalance damaging the WikiLeaks revelations – 91,000 documents that, Time believes, cannot provide "emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land".

Here in Afghanistan, Samia's story is typical – its happy ending is not. Samia is a rape victim, but now it's the morning of her wedding. By late afternoon, she will be married in a private ceremony in Karte Se, Kabul. One of the 150 guests at this extraordinary marriage ceremony will be the activist and suspended MP Malalai Joya: Samia's handsome husband-to-be, Faramarz, has been one of Ms Joya's bodyguards for more than four years.

"If the conflict is to be wound down, real compromises will have to be made on the constitution, women's rights and civil liberties." These are the words of an editorial comment in Afghan Scene, a magazine written by and mainly for the international community in Afghanistan. After years of fierce fighting and numerous counterinsurgency initiatives, the Afghan government and some of its international allies seem to have reached to the peak of desperation. They are now even exploring whether Afghan women's rights can be sacrificed in order to declare "mission accomplished".

Work outside the home in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province has become almost impossible for women due to constant threats and intimidation by insurgents. Convinced she will be killed if she continues to defy the threats, 39-year-old Ranna Tareen, director of Kandahar’s women’s affairs department and a well-known women’s rights activist, has decided to leave Kandahar and run for parliament in Kabul.

The Afghan authorities have cancelled the operating licences of 152 national and 20 international NGOs, accusing them of not being accountable. “All NGOs have to report [their activities] to the Ministry of Economy [MoE] every six months but these NGOs have not reported for almost two years and therefore they [their operating licences] have been annulled,” Seddiq Amarkhil, MoE’s spokesman, told IRIN, adding that the NGOs had the right of appeal.

One of the most contentious issues within Islam today is the role of women in society. Conservatives endorse a narrow reading of Islamic texts to justify restrictions on women's mobility, legal rights and access to the public sphere, including health care, education and the workplace. Extremists among them use violence to impose their views. Moderate Muslims, on the other hand, find plenty within the Qur'an to support a full role and equal rights for women.

The shooting of a female Afghan politician on Monday demonstrates the fragility of the modest gains made by Afghan women after the fall of the Taleban, Amnesty International said on Thursday. Nida Khyani, a female Provincial Council member, was left in critical condition after being attacked in a drive-by shooting in Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital of Baghlan in northern Afghanistan. "Nida Khyani is yet another casualty of the systematic violent targeting of women in public life in Afghanistan," said Sam Zarifi, Director of Amnesty International's Asia Pacific programme.